Comment: Has Airbus learned from A380 errors?

04 May, 2010

SOURCE: Flight International

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Airbus has been spouting the over-used phrase "lessons learned" as it explains how it will avoid repeating A380 mistakes on the A350.

The airfamer uttered similar words a decade ago after the calamitous early days of the A340-500/600 as A380 development began, when it declared that "these mistakes cannot be repeated". They weren't. As one wit quipped, Airbus came up with a set of new ones.

But the signs are that Airbus really has learned from the pains it endured when it started building its superjumbo. A case in point was the decision to build a buffer into the XWB's flight-test programme - even Airbus admits that customers had queried why it had scheduled 15 months when others only needed a year.

That margin has now been burned up after the structural design slip, but Airbus has other tricks up its sleeve to keep on schedule. For example, there will be a full-size A350 fuselage mock-up (built from solid material rather than computer code). This may seem a bit last century but should ensure the cabin's wiring looms aren't too short, as some were on the A380. That programme's over-reliance on the digital mock-up resulted in disastrous production delays as teams of workers had to re-wire the double-deckers on the line.

So there is strong evidence that Airbus is well prepared to dodge earlier mistakes - customers must just hope it doesn't invent any new ones this time.

Now that Etihad Airways has elected to stop funding Air Berlin, forcing the German carrier to file for assembly, a central question is which parts of the business can continue to operate in the long term.